BOULDER — Happy trails to former Colorado associate athletic director Jim Senter who will begin duties as athletic director at The Citadel on Monday.

Senter, 52, was named athletic director at The Citadel earlier this month. The Citadel is a NCAA Division I school and a prestigious military institution in Charleston, S.C.

Born in Pennsylvania but raised in Oklahoma, Senter was in his ninth year at Colorado. Initially a fund raiser for the CU Foundation (as associate athletic director for development), Senter moved to the athletic department and last year switched to the newly created position of football sport administrator.

Through a CU news release, here are some parting comments by Senter, who will be remembered at CU for his approachable, down-home personality and infectious laugh.

Senior Derrick Webb (1), an inside linebacker for the Colorado Buffaloes football team, helps lead the team on to Folsom Field following famed live-buffalo mascot Ralphie in the game against the University of California at Folsom Field. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

Colorado received the Pac-12’s annual Sportsmanship Award for its humanitarian efforts and resiliency in helping the university and Boulder community recover from the September flooding, CU announced Tuesday.

The award is bestowed by the Pac-12 Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

“The way our student-athletes, coaches and staff responded during that difficult time was most rewarding to witness personally,” CU Athletic Director Rick George said in a news release.

In addition to Colorado presenting its Athletics Strategic Plan for 2014-17 to the CU board of regents, the school also announced Wednesday that it has selected the design/build team for the $143 million athletic complex expansion project:

The partnership of Denver-based Mortenson Construction and Kansas City-based Populous, which has 13 worldwide locations.

Mortenson/Populous has partnered for many high-profile projects including Coors Field and the Pepsi Center.

The chairman of Mortenson Construction, M.A. Mortenson Jr., is a CU graduate in engineering. Some of the projects that have involved Mortenson Construction include Kansas State’s football stadium expansion, the Minnesota Twins’ Target Field, the University of Minnesota’s new football stadium, terminals at Denver International Airport and the current project at Coors Field with part of the upper deck in right field being converted to a food/beverage/entertainment area.

To clear up any confusion or erroneous notions, CU athletic director Rick George reiterated that no tax dollars or student fees will be used for this facilities expansion. Financing will come from private and corporate donations, and through bonding.

George hopes groundbreaking will be sometime in April with completion targeted for August 2005.

As a University of Colorado alumnus (but not a Trustafarian), I’m on the whole supportive of the CU board of regents’ greenlighting of the $143 million in upgrades to athletic facilities in Boulder.

Short of a SALT treaty, that’s the minimal amount of investment necessary moving forward for CU in the real world of Pac 12 sports.

But I’m uneasy, too.

Somewhere Mike Bohn is laughing. He was fired as athletic director in late May, primarily because president Bruce Benson — who has done an absolutely amazing job of essentially privatizing a public university and finding revenue streams in the wake of vanishing state support — was unhappy with the progress of athletic department fund-raising.

And now, four-plus months later, CU has green-lighted that project, despite still having raised “only” $10 million as seed money. The seed-money goal for the $143 million project was $50 million by December.

I get it: George, who reported for duty in mid-August, deserves time to build up fund-raising traction.

But any attempt to portray him as having pulled off a miracle turnaround and justifying Bohn’s firing that way is absurd.

BOULDER — Charleston Southern’s acceptance to fill Colorado’s bye date Oct. 19 and give the Buffaloes a 12th game was a relief to coach Mike MacIntyre and new athletic director Rick George. The pair had worked for two weeks trying to get a replacement after the flood cancelled the Sept. 14 game with Fresno State.

“I felt like a used car salesman,” MacIntyre said at his weekly press luncheon Tuesday. “I’ve never got so many no’s in my entire life. I know Rick feels the same way. A couple we had thought we had done, signed, sealed and delivered. Then we get a phone call after they played a game on Saturday and say, ‘No, we’re too beat up. We’re not going to do it.’ Well, what are we going to do next?”

BOULDER — If Colorado can ever reschedule its 12th game, it likely will need help from the NCAA, a school athletic department official said Tuesday.

Jim Senter, associate athletic director in charge of football, said the biggest problem is teams already have 12 games on their schedule. Fresno State, which had its Sept. 14 game at Colorado cancelled by the flood, has a similar problem.

“More than likely whoever we get to play, we’ll likely have to petition the NCAA to have a 13th game (for the other team),” Senter said. “Basically, the NCAA understands Colorado is having a hardship, Fresno State’s having a hardship and they need to have 12 games.”

Athletic director Rick George was in Dallas attending the Division IA Athletic Directors Association meetings and has surely talked to nearly every AD in the hotel.

BOULDER — Colorado athletic director Rick George is still scrambling to find a 12th game to replace the cancelled Sept. 14 game against Fresno State, but coach Mike MacIntyre knows who he does not want to play.

San Jose State. The Spartans, along with San Diego State, could logistically play in Boulder as they have the same Oct. 19 open date as Colorado. Besides the fact that the Spartans don’t have another bye week the rest of the year, MacIntyre does not want to play the team he coached from 2010-12.

“No, we will not play San Jose State,” MacIntyre said at Tuesday’s weekly press luncheon. “I don’t want to go up against young men that I care deeply about. I don’t think that would be the right thing to do.”

BOULDER — Fresno State’s 41-40 win over Boise State Friday night made the Bulldogs the only unbeaten or unranked team in the Mountain West. It gives them an even bigger inside edge on the league title game Dec. 7. That means that potential makeup date for the flood-postponed Sept. 14 game at Colorado is all but extinguished.

Colorado still has an open date Oct. 19. New athletic director Rick George has to scramble in a hurry to find a 12th game. At least he’s in the right place. He’s attending the Division 1A Athletic Directors Association annual meeting Monday and Tuesday in Dallas.

He’ll surely talk to San Jose State AD Gene Bleymaier and San Diego State’s Jim Sterk. They also have byes Oct. 19 and play at Hawaii, giving them an automatic waiver to play a 13th game.

BOULDER — Colorado faces a lot of challenges in trying to reschedule its Fresno State game which was postponed Saturday. Here are the options and matching dilemmas:

* Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Same problem. While Denver’s roads are dry, some outlying areas, particularly Aurora, are flooded. Also, Colorado athletic director Rick George said transporting fans from flooded areas will be problematic. But a bigger issue than roads is security. Colorado chancellor Phil DiStefano said 60-70 police officers are used every home game for crowd and traffic control. All police departments are strapped, meaning if they don’t have the manpower to staff Folsom Field they likely don’t have it for Sports Authority Field on short notice.

* Oct. 19. Conceivably, the teams could play here. Fresno State hosts UNLV Oct. 19 but both teams have open dates on Nov. 16. They could move their game to the 16th, opening Oct. 19 for Fresno State and Colorado. It likely won’t happen. UNLV plays at Air Force Thursday Nov. 21. That would be two road games over five days. No way.

Dec. 7. That’s the first open date for Colorado and Fresno State. However, that’s the date of the Pac-12 and Mountain West title games. Colorado has little shot but Fresno State is favored to make it. Scheduling that date so far out would be too risky.

Dec. 14. This would be a logical date, especially for a team wanting a tuneup for an upcoming bowl game. However, Colorado’s finals week is Dec. 14-19 and the football team historically has been told it can’t play during finals week and practice must be limited. This would be all new territory for the Buffaloes. They haven’t played a bowl game before Christmas since the 1970 Liberty Bowl on Dec. 12.

Also, depending on the year, the NCAA requires teams to complete their schedule in 13 or 14 weeks after the Saturday before Labor Day. This year, Week 13 is Dec. 8 and Week 14 is Dec. 15.

Colorado and Fresno State officials will meet over the next few days to find a solution.

I spoke on the phone Tuesday with University of Colorado supporter and benefactor George Solich for a story related to the PGA Tour’s 2014 BMW Championship at Cherry Hills announcing a Priority Ticket Program in advance of general sales in late August.

Solich, a Denver oilman, is the 2014 BMW Championship General Chairman. Of course, I had to also ask Solich if he had met newly hired CU athletic director Rick George.

Little did I know that, ironically, Solich met George a few years ago when George worked for the PGA Tour and Solich was engaged in early discussions with tour officials about bringing the BMW Championship to Cherry Hills.

Kensler joined The Denver Post in 1989 and has covered a variety of beats, including Colorado, Colorado State, golf, Olympics and the Denver Broncos. His brush with greatness: losing in a two-on-two pickup basketball game at Ohio State against two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.